The first quarter of Canadian job vacancies proved fulfilling for aspiring immigrants. The reason is the high number of job vacancies in Canada, up to 957,500 according to Statistics Canada. The number of vacancies has risen by 72 percent with around 401,900 job positions compared to 2020’s first quarter.
A comparison of the first quarter in 2022 and the fourth quarter in 2021 states that the previous record numbers were broken by 3 percent, with over 24,900 job vacancies.
Another record-breaking number of vacancies was observed in the social assistance and health care sector with 136,800 vacancies due to an increase in the labor shortage in the respective sectors.
Compared to the first quarter of 2020, vacancies increased by 91 %, with 65,100 job positions in 2022’s first quarter.
There has been an unexpected vacancy rise in the construction sector too, with 81,500 vacant positions to be filled by construction employees. With each quarter, the construction sector increased by 7 percent, with 5,400 job positions from the fourth quarter in 2021.
Job vacancies are trending upwards in the retail and manufacturing sectors. The manufacturing industry saw 87,400 job vacancies in the last quarter whereas the employers in the retail sector sought to fill 114,600 jobs.
The professional, technical, and scientific sectors didn’t see much change in the job vacancies compared to the previous record number. Employers of these sectors had around 68,800 job positions to fill.
There were about 133,800 job positions in the food and accommodation sector in the first quarter. This sector saw a 12 % decrease in the vacant positions.
In the first quarter, the ratio between unemployment to job vacancies is 1.3, which declined to 2.2, as compared to the first quarter of 2020. This resulted in a drastic decline in the number of unemployed workers due to the growing number of vacancies.
The ratio between the unemployed workers and job vacancies also differed across all the provinces in Canada. Quebec and British Columbia had around one unemployed individual for every vacant job while Newfoundland and Labrador consisted of four unemployed individuals for each vacant job.
The ratio is low because of the existing labor shortages and tight labor market. Consequently, the employers in Canada are facing challenges to fill in vacant job positions. The first quarter saw Canadian employers hiring around 34 new employees for every 100 positions.
Comparatively, in 2021’s first quarter, over 48 new employees were hired for every 100 vacancies and 82 new hires in 2016’s first quarter since the data comparison began.
When observing the sectors with colossal demand, the employers of the food and accommodation sector hired about 23 employees for every 100 vacancies. The same number applies to the healthcare and social assistance sector.
Employers associated with professional, scientific, and technical sectors hired around 50 new employees.
The Canadian Survey on Business Conditions stated that over two-fifths of businesses would face recruiting challenges concerning skilled employees between January 4 and February 7. Whereas, 30 % of businesses will face obstacles in retaining employees.
